Revenues For Canada’s Oil Towns Dwindle As Firms Stop Paying Taxes

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

1 hour ago, CL Trader said:

JV

I have been a small residential subdivision developer, highway, heavy, utility builder for 40 years. In 2006 I took out a land development loan from a well  known bank to build a project that would close out with about 22 million in gross sales. All under a 24 month take down agreement contract with a preferred customer of the bank, and an entity of which I was greatly encouraged to contract with.

After 9 months of site development and going in to the first of 12 pre determined closing dates, I was given a notice of demand for full payment of the loan back to the bank. No problems, interest carry built into the loan for 24 months. The nationwide home builder canceled my contract with them, quote..."for near term concern of market conditions not being conducive to a profitable transaction".

In a matter of 30 days.. I was in foreclosure, the property went to public sale, the national builder scooped it up $5000.... yes you read that right.. $5000.  Brought his work forces in and continued to build the project as designed.

I was able to get an injunction to stop the activity, got an appraisal on the present condition at time of sale, realized I had an appraised value in excess of $4 million over the loan balance due to the bank. The well known bank filed an IRS form reflecting that the value of the property was 3.8 million dollars greater the loan balance due to them.  Not only had I lost my equity in a lightning fast legal maneuver, the bank attorneys then sued me  for 100% of the loan balance in U.S. Court.  I counter sued for intent to defraud.

I owned a few low production oil wells, I sold them to raise capital to pay attorney retainer fees. I sold part of my highway construction business to raise more capital a second time. After wrecking my finances, credit, most of my liquidity.... and 3 years of sanity... the bank received an unfavorable determination from the courts, not a final verdict...just an opinion. They abruptly withdrew the complaint. No reason given.

I paid 1.37 times the loan amount in dispute..... in legal fees.. for nothing. Land gone.. profit gone.. and everyone was like... Oh Well.

Thanks for sharing that.  Sounds like hell and I'm sorry to hear you lost so much of what must have taken you many years to build up.  Those guys are crooks, plain and simple, and they use their armies of lawyers, shady lawyers, to crush the honest man/woman.  I have read articles about developments like you describe, but those articles only talked about the screwing the new house owners/renters got after they were done.  Thanks again for sharing your (painful) story.

[Illurion + 894]

1 hour ago, CL Trader said:

JV

I have been a small residential subdivision developer, highway, heavy, utility builder for 40 years. In 2006 I took out a land development loan from a well  known bank to build a project that would close out with about 22 million in gross sales. All under a 24 month take down agreement contract with a preferred customer of the bank, and an entity of which I was greatly encouraged to contract with.

After 9 months of site development and going in to the first of 12 pre determined closing dates, I was given a notice of demand for full payment of the loan back to the bank. No problems, interest carry built into the loan for 24 months. The nationwide home builder canceled my contract with them, quote..."for near term concern of market conditions not being conducive to a profitable transaction".

In a matter of 30 days.. I was in foreclosure, the property went to public sale, the national builder scooped it up $5000.... yes you read that right.. $5000.  Brought his work forces in and continued to build the project as designed.

I was able to get an injunction to stop the activity, got an appraisal on the present condition at time of sale, realized I had an appraised value in excess of $4 million over the loan balance due to the bank. The well known bank filed an IRS form reflecting that the value of the property was 3.8 million dollars greater the loan balance due to them.  Not only had I lost my equity in a lightning fast legal maneuver, the bank attorneys then sued me  for 100% of the loan balance in U.S. Court.  I counter sued for intent to defraud.

I owned a few low production oil wells, I sold them to raise capital to pay attorney retainer fees. I sold part of my highway construction business to raise more capital a second time. After wrecking my finances, credit, most of my liquidity.... and 3 years of sanity... the bank received an unfavorable determination from the courts, not a final verdict...just an opinion. They abruptly withdrew the complaint. No reason given.

I paid 1.37 times the loan amount in dispute..... in legal fees.. for nothing. Land gone.. profit gone.. and everyone was like... Oh Well.

I am sorry they did this to you.

In another thread,  talking about this kind of stuff,  i called them ANIMALS,  and i meant every word.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 hour ago, CL Trader said:

JV

I have been a small residential subdivision developer, highway, heavy, utility builder for 40 years. In 2006 I took out a land development loan from a well  known bank to build a project that would close out with about 22 million in gross sales. All under a 24 month take down agreement contract with a preferred customer of the bank, and an entity of which I was greatly encouraged to contract with.

After 9 months of site development and going in to the first of 12 pre determined closing dates, I was given a notice of demand for full payment of the loan back to the bank. No problems, interest carry built into the loan for 24 months. The nationwide home builder canceled my contract with them, quote..."for near term concern of market conditions not being conducive to a profitable transaction".

In a matter of 30 days.. I was in foreclosure, the property went to public sale, the national builder scooped it up $5000.... yes you read that right.. $5000.  Brought his work forces in and continued to build the project as designed.

I was able to get an injunction to stop the activity, got an appraisal on the present condition at time of sale, realized I had an appraised value in excess of $4 million over the loan balance due to the bank. The well known bank filed an IRS form reflecting that the value of the property was 3.8 million dollars greater the loan balance due to them.  Not only had I lost my equity in a lightning fast legal maneuver, the bank attorneys then sued me  for 100% of the loan balance in U.S. Court.  I counter sued for intent to defraud.

I owned a few low production oil wells, I sold them to raise capital to pay attorney retainer fees. I sold part of my highway construction business to raise more capital a second time. After wrecking my finances, credit, most of my liquidity.... and 3 years of sanity... the bank received an unfavorable determination from the courts, not a final verdict...just an opinion. They abruptly withdrew the complaint. No reason given.

I paid 1.37 times the loan amount in dispute..... in legal fees.. for nothing. Land gone.. profit gone.. and everyone was like... Oh Well.

What you are describing happened to a farm, incorporated as Conlon Farms, located outside of Sacramento, California.  Wells Fargo bank had this agricultural loan division that would finance crops and get paid when the harvest was in and sold.  Conlon was solicited by WF to put their business with WF.  Not disclosed was that Corporate had issued orders to the division to close it down and get out of ag lending.  Part way through, WF abruptly called the loan and took all the farm cash in the checking account as an offset.  The Farm had no money to harvest the crop and it ended up being plowed under.  Conlon sued WF, and the jury awarded $50 million.  

In your case, since you have filed counter-claims, the c.c. would survive the withdrawal by the bank of their Complaint.  You should and could have continued the case, where now you were the plaintiff in chief.  If the case is not stale-dated, the statute of limitations varies between States but would typically be six years on written agreements  (contracts), then you still would have a viable bad-faith action against the bank, good for another $50 million.  Any decent "plaintiff's bar" contingency fee lawyer would be able to clean their clock.  

Also there is case law out there that stands for the proposition that a suit in foreclosure of property that also demands a deficiency judgment is really a suit on note, and thus an election that does not provide for taking of the property. Judges do not understand that, nor much of anything else.  A big problem is educating the Judges - also a huge problem in Canada, where judges in outlying towns are notoriously inept and incompetent.  In the USA, there are some States where I counsel not to buy property, not to conduct business, and not even to travel in, as the courts are so utterly incompetent.  On that list are:  Oklahoma, Illinois, Georgia, Florida, Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, Connecticut and Rhode Island.  Stay away, people. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

4 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

4 million homes, for Wells Fargo alone!?!?  Tell us, did you ever pull out your trusty calculator and come up with an estimate of how much pure profit they stand to make on all these scams?

Folks, I don't like the word "regulations" as it applies to doing business in America (or elsewhere, for that matter), but these banks have been, hell, encouraged to act like this.  They are not regulated at all.  Nobody is watching the savings of average, everyday bank customers.  The government institutions that Americans are led to believe are looking out for their (usually) biggest lifetime investment, their home, are not paying attention, nor are they mandated to, or worse.  This also applies to the tools that retirement investment funds are allowed to use.  The risk the banks are taking with people's savings and investments is beyond tolerable, it's criminal!  The banks are allowed by law to invest customer deposits in risky debt and derivative mechanisms that are by themselves un-quantifiable and, get this, untraceable!  Using bank customer deposits on risky bank "investments", history shows, is what ended up in runs on the banks during the Great Depression.  If I recall correctly, back in 2008, bank customers in Spain were not allowed to withdraw their own money, or only allowed to withdraw 50 Euros a week or something like that, NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY HAD ON DEPOSIT!  This can happen to us in America if banks become insolvent.    How long could you last if that happened to your accounts?  And what would you do if, during that lovely time, along comes Wells Fargo to foreclose on your house due to lack of payment?  Talk about armed incursions and revolt.  What will your neighbors do if they are told they cannot get to their own money?  What will you do?  Get out of debt, don't take on new debt, keep some cash stashed in a safe place, like the United States Bank of Your Mattress.  Rant over, for now.

As to the profits of Wells Fargo, they are hard to quantify as a good number of those fraudclosures were done through phony trusts, or "ghost trusts," where the photocopies of the loan documents were deposited, then certificates sold to naive investors.  The investors thought they were buying shares of a Real Estate trust, but in fact they were buying participation certificates in debt collections.  The real money all went to the managers, via their year-end bonus pool.  For example, the bonus pool for Goldman Sachs was $38 Billion, with the smallest of the small-fry employee getting one million dollars as a Christmas Bonus  (they called it the Year-end bonus as Goldman Sachs is a Jewish firm). The reason they were able to hand out cash like lollipops while the rest of the planet was going broke was because thy earned that cash the old-fashioned way: they stole it.  Using lawyers, of course.  Now, to answer your question: the overall take is perhaps two trillion. How much of that ended up with WF managers as bonus cash is anybody's guess.  Personally, I figure it could be $400 million, but it is hard to pin down, and WF does not exactly advertise the number.  All of it is simply stolen from MR. and Mrs. Average American. 

Now, as to limited withdrawals, that is nothing.  During the Cypriot Insolvency, the depositors' cash was confiscated to pay the defaults of the Bank itself.  Depositors in Cyprus lost 50% of their savings deposits.  Simply taken by the bank to cover the bank's overall aggregate loan losses.  You did no know that you were becoming a fiduciary of the Bank when you deposited your cash there?  Rude awakening.  Lots of businesses in Cyprus went under, they could not pay the bills to the importers.  Some importers went under, also, the ones that did not deposit their cash in Germany.  But the biggest hits were to the Russian Oligarchs, who had stashed vast sums in Cyprus to avoid Russian taxes. Oh, well. 

Doing a house loan?  Use a credit union.  Make sure they are not fronting as a broker, to go sell it off to Quicken Loans or some other disreputable shark outfit. Quicken made a loan to the father-in-law of a client of mine, when he was 88, and was under care for senility for the past eight years.  Pops had no idea what he was signing.  The loan required him to be 118 when it was finally paid according to its terms.  It was thus a loan that could only be paid in foreclosure.  By definition, that is a "predatory loan" according to Regulation Z.  They then sued the son-in-law, who is not a signatory to the note, on the theory that the now-dead Pops had a daughter and the son-in-law was stupid enough to marry her.  Therefore, according to Quicken's thinking, HE should pay.  Quicken's collectors even called up the mom of the son-in-law in her home in Brooklyn, NYC, demanding that SHE pay!  These people have no shame. None.  Total pond scum.  Sue them all. 

PS:  I never charge anyone for my help. It is all pro-bono.  I view taking down predatory bankers as my Christian Obligation. 

[CL Trader + 20]

 

Thanks for the replies from all of you. The SOL has expired, 10 years have passed. I  learned an excellent lesson.

And, thankfully, in the years since then,   my highway, heavy company has done well. My oil interests have multiplied several times over.

I kept my chin up, and did not waste time dwelling on the past.  I marched forward with more understanding of the business world and wolves in sheep's clothing.

I still do small projects...but with my own money as cash flow allows. NO OUTSIDE LENDERS. 

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

5 minutes ago, mthebold said:

You've made comments the effect that America is to violent a society, but I suspect it is so by design - and this bank fraud is a prime reason for that design. 

 

Fun fact: only about 20% of human beings are capable of killing another human being, even in self defense.  For the most part, we're a peaceful species.  The US military figured this out during WWII and set about correcting it.  By Vietnam, they had 95+% of recruits killing on battlefields.  The psychological cost is high - esp. in terms of the dark emotional places infantry go to to cope - but the combat effectiveness is unparalleled. 

Now consider that the US has potentially millions of veterans running around with this conditioning.  They also lived through what you might call... impolite wars.  To quote the Marines who trained me, "If you find yourself in a situation where you'll be captured, fight to the death or save the last bullet for yourself, because they're just going to cut your head off." 

If violence breaks out in the US, I would expect less "tar and feathering" and more "trained killers ending lineages".  The fat cats should probably fear for their families. 

Paul, you are totally correct in this analysis.  One very small correction:  I did not say or suggest that America is "Too violent" a society, I merely pointed out that, compared to say New Zealand, it is a "violent" society.  

And yes, inevitably the fat cats will find that their protection protocols will fail not just themselves, but also their families.  Another very good reason to go through life with basic decency as your byword.  Which one should be doing anyway, in a society that calls itself Christian.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 12/30/2018 at 7:55 PM, CL Trader said:

 

I still do small projects...but with my own money as cash flow allows. NO OUTSIDE LENDERS. 

 

Against the day that I become fabulously wealthy, my aim is to set up a Private Bank, without FDIC insurance (and thus also without them looking into the books and over my shoulder) specifically to finance and support small entrepreneurs.  You would never get that kind of deceitful, disgusting exploitation from my private bank. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 minute ago, mthebold said:

It sounds like we're on the same page then.  Would be nice to have fewer "gun nuts", but the average citizen's willingness to violently right wrongs keeps things more stable. 

I had another thought on this:  in Viking cultures that practiced Odinism, the path to Valhalla was glorious death on the battlefield.  Seeking entry to The Hall of the Slain, aging warriors would seek worthy opponents until they met their death.  Personally, that strikes me as a better way to go than slowly rotting in an old folk's home.  It's certainly better than committing suicide alone as so many veterans do. 

We have so many people in the US with nothing left to lose; I'm surprised the practice hasn't been revived on a large scale.  It would certainly resolve our problem with sociopathic "leaders". 

Stick around, Paul, coming soon, to a town near you.........

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

18 minutes ago, mthebold said:

Me, when it happens.

I have to keep commenting on this.  The more I think about it, the more I realize how severe it will be. 

I got a taste for that kind of violence in Iraq.  Once you numb yourself to the horror of it, it's the most addictive thing you'll ever experience - and you never forget.  It's practically a religious experience.  Years later, veterans crave more.  Many voluntarily return to combat for another hit. 

And there's so much pent up anger, pain, and hatred in this country.  Once people finally snap, the violence will be overwhelming and unstoppable.  It'll be a purge of anything and everything people associate with their suffering. 

It occurs to me that I never thanked you for your service, so, Thank You for your service, sir!  

[Illurion + 894]

3 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

It occurs to me that I never thanked you for your service, so, Thank You for your service, sir!  

 

3 hours ago, mthebold said:

You're welcome.  About half the country is still worth defending, more or less.  I suppose that's good enough. 

I have been busy supervising my Grandkids as they took down Christmas lights today.

Just checked in.

Much of what was said above i agree with too.

Been there,   though the death part i did not find addictive.

You do what you have to do and move on.

I came to the realization that i am not exactly the person that i would like to be,  but whatever.

When CL-Trader wrote what happened to him,  i told him i was sorry,  and that the people that did it to him are animals.

They were and are.

I won't go into the story here,  but the bank you are discussing so much screwed me over one time.

I pointed out to them that they had broken the law,  and sic'd my Attorney on them,  and and i settled for them paying me a one time payment of $5,400.

Frankly,  they were smart to settle with me.

 

In any case,  MTHEBOLD,  i agree with Dan,  and thank you for your service.

 

 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

7 hours ago, Illurion said:

 

I have been busy supervising my Grandkids as they took down Christmas lights today.

Just checked in.

Much of what was said above i agree with too.

Been there,   though the death part i did not find addictive.

You do what you have to do and move on.

I came to the realization that i am not exactly the person that i would like to be,  but whatever.

When CL-Trader wrote what happened to him,  i told him i was sorry,  and that the people that did it to him are animals.

They were and are.

I won't go into the story here,  but the bank you are discussing so much screwed me over one time.

I pointed out to them that they had broken the law,  and sic'd my Attorney on them,  and and i settled for them paying me a one time payment of $5,400.

Frankly,  they were smart to settle with me.

 

In any case,  MTHEBOLD,  i agree with Dan,  and thank you for your service.

 

 

Thanks to you, Sir, as well for your service.

[Illurion + 894]

On 12/30/2018 at 8:01 AM, Jan van Eck said:

The Canadians realize it just fine.  They now appreciate that they have been badly led by incompetent leaders, at least on the Provincial level.  And that is why they have tossed out the Provincial Liberals to devastating extent in several Provinces, especially in Ontario, where the Liberals went from 126 seats to 5.  How's that for a demolition of a Party? Eh?

The USA is no longer salvageable. The population has become both too stupid and too violent.  Look around you.

Think again about Canada:

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/fatah-coming-soon-believe-it-or-not-islamic-party-of-ontario

quote from the article:   "It operates with a mandate to introduce Islamic rule in Ontario and Canada because, according to the fledgling party, “We understand and believe that Islam is the native DEEN (religion) of Ontario and Canada.”

...............................................

Canada is sinking fast,  and the American people are not stupid,  or violent,  for as someone posted in another thread,   if you take out the black violence in several Democrat run minority cities,  the murder rate in America is negligible.